For at least 13,000 years, the Abenaki, or “People of the First Light,” lived on and with the land, here in the area we call New Ipswich. The Abenaki travelled locally and seasonally, planting crops such as squash, beans, and corn in the spring, gathering berries in the summer, and hunting for survival through winter. The Souheagan River was an important site for catching migratory fish including Atlantic salmon, American shad, and river herring.
Naming the river Souheagan, or the “Watching Place,” the Abenaki relied on waterways as transportation routes, using dugout and birchbark canoes. The Abenaki also created and used footpaths through the mountainous landscape, many of which later became area roadways.
The arrival of European colonists in the early 1700s radically disrupted the lives of the Abenaki. The Indigenous faced multiple challenges including disease brought by the colonists to which they had no immunity, land dispossession, forced removal, enslavement, eradication of ancestral traditions through conversion to Christianity, and a series of worsening conflicts despite early attempts by the Abenaki to coexist.
During the eighteenth century, conflict between the Abenaki and the European colonists surged, one area of conflict being the use of the waterways and land. Intent on exporting old-growth timber and locally source wool, the colonists dammed the rivers and erected mills. In the 1700s, colonists increasingly populated the area, which saw increased agrarian development of the land, the establishment of textile mills, and the incorporation of towns. The development of mills continued through the 1800s and into the early 1900s. The dams and the water pollution caused by the mills severely impacted the migratory fish other wildlife on which the Abenaki relied.
Today, through persistence and resilience, the Abenaki people living in New Hampshire continue to thrive.
Elegance in the Country
Barrett House was built in 1800 as a wedding gift for Charles Barrett Jr. and Martha Minot by Charles Barrett Sr. According to tradition, Jonas Minot, the bride’s father, declared he would furnish as fine and elegant a house as the father of the groom could build.
When the young Charles Jr. and Martha were raising their five children at Barrett House, New Ipswich was a bustling mill village and the local economy was booming with a variety of locally manufactured products. Despite being removed from an urban center, Charles Jr. and Martha maintained an elegant lifestyle at Barrett House. They entertained guests, at times in their third-floor ballroom, and surrounded themselves with fine furniture and decorative pieces. Barrett House continued to serve as Charles Jr. and Martha’s home until their deaths in 1836 and 1842, respectively.
A Family Home
After the death of Martha Barrett in 1842, her second eldest son, Charles III, lived at Barrett House with his family for several years before moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to pursue a prosperous career as a book dealer.
In 1848 George Barrett, the eldest son of Charles Jr. and Martha, along with his wife Frances Ames Barrett, took up residence in Barrett House and raised a family there.
In 1862 George Barrett died, leaving Frances the house. To accommodate the growth of her extended family, Frances built an adjoining ell for her son Edward and his family. She maintained residence in the main house with her younger son, George Robert.
By the middle of the nineteenth century New Ipswich, like many New England towns, underwent an economic and population decline. Bypassed by the railroad and deeply affected by the closing of local mills, many people moved away, including George Robert Barrett.
A Revitalized Summer Retreat
After Edward Barrett and Frances Barrett died in 1883 and 1887, respectively, George Robert Barrett took ownership of Barrett House. He and his wife, Elizabeth Barr Barrett, were living in Boston at the time. In an effort to make Barrett House their comfortable country summer retreat, they undertook several renovations, including the addition of two luxurious bathrooms.
George Robert and Elizabeth’s renovation of Barrett House took several years and was never completed. Elizabeth died in 1911 and George Robert in 1916, leaving renovation and redecoration of some rooms unfinished. Crates of furniture and fixtures, still in their original packaging, are in the house today.
A Forgotten Country Mansion
In 1916 the house and its contents were left to George Robert’s stepdaughter, Caroline Barr Wade. She never made Barrett House her home. She boarded up the house and its contents and it sat unoccupied for more than forty years.
Becoming a Museum
In 1948 Caroline Barr Wade donated Barrett House with a generous endowment to Historic New England as a memorial to the Barrett family. In 1948 and 1949 Historic New England (then known as Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities) undertook a significant restoration project at Barrett House. Plaster was repaired, period wallpapers were hung, and the kitchen was restored to its c. 1800 state. In 1950 Barrett House opened as a museum, sharing the history of the Barrett family and its vanished way of life with the public.